


Hands that Help, Hands that Hurt

by Ranni



Series: Reassembling [3]
Category: Avengers, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Protective Tony Stark, Sick Clint Barton, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 10:06:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9814652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranni/pseuds/Ranni
Summary: Clint's fever trip across America





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story begins after the events of "Captain America: Civil War", and ends with Clint arriving in my Tony Stark story "What Happens Next".

Clint tucked his daughter into bed for the last time. Lila was delaying as long as she could, as if by not sleeping she could stop him leaving. She cried and clung to him.

"You promised," she wept. "You said Daddies don't leave, that you would always come back."

"I'm so sorry," Clint said back, his own voice a sob. He stroked her hair, kissed her face, felt his heart break again and again. "Someday, Lila, you'll grow up and have a little girl. And then you'll understand how much I love you, and understand why I have to leave. That I loved you, and your brothers, and your Mommy so much that I would do anything to make you safe, even if I didn't want to."

"I won't," she cried. "I won't ever understand."

Clint held her as tightly as he could, hoping that one day she would forgive him. That she would know that all he had ever wanted was to be was a good father, one that would never hurt his children the way he had been hurt. That he had never wanted to make them cry, to break their hearts the way his had been broken.

He had failed.

Clint Barton left that night. He never saw his family again.

*******

 

After he left his crying children, and his grim, quiet wife Clint still had Wanda. They spent the next two months visiting and emptying the various boltholes he had around the country, sending all the money stashed in them back to Laura. There was a lot, she would not have to worry. He didn't have as many hideouts as Natasha; he had not really felt the need for a safehouse when his family had been at the farm. That had been his safe place, the only one that mattered.

When they had arrived at the final one, a small apartment in Minneapolis, Clint had peeled back some carpet, worked loose the plywood beneath, and retrieved a box of cash. Wanda took the box silently, waited.

"That's for you," he told her. "There should be $7,000 in there. It will be enough to get you started."

"Started doing what?" she asked, but she had understood. That this was the end, that he would be going on alone.

"Whatever you want," he said, and kissed her cheek. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, too tight. "You can do anything. You're strong," he told her. "So strong." He had made her new IDs and other papers. It had been easy; he had made several different identities years before for Laura, and had only needed to tweak them a little for Wanda.

"Where will you go?" Wanda asked. She looked at the box, and the cards he had given her. Her name was Clara now.

"Nowhere," Clint said, and began walking there.

*************

 

Clint spent the next two months at the farm, waiting. He did not go in the house, mostly stayed perched in the trees outside or on the roof. When it rained he thought about going into the barn to stay dry, then decided it didn't matter and stayed where he was.

He waited to see who would show up, who would be the first person that came looking. Clint hoped it would be Natasha--he missed her terribly, almost as much as Laura and the kids--but in his heart he knew she would never come. Perhaps it would be Steve or Sam, coming to see if Clint was alright.

Or maybe it would be Ross and his men. And then Clint would know that the others had sold him out.

But in the end it had been Stark that had shown up. He did not fly in as Ironman, as Clint would have guessed, but drove up in a car, by himself. He knocked on the door, called out, peered in windows.

Clint sat invisible in his perch, his hands clenched so tightly on the rifle that his knuckles were white. He raised the gun, finally, and pointed it at Tony's head. Waited.

Tony was on the porch, hands in his pockets. His head was down, his shoulders sagging. He just stood there. Stood there thinking about God knew what while Clint watched from above, finger on the trigger. Finally Tony had gotten back in his car and driven away, and Clint was glad he had not had to shoot him. Tony had been a friend, once.

Clint waited three more weeks, but no one else came. He grabbed his backpack and started walking again.

He left the rifle behind.

 

**********

He had two hundred dollars in his pack, and fifteen more in his pocket. It was not enough to live on, but he didn't expect he would need to worry about that very long. As soon as he got to New York everything would be over. No one would have to look for him, and no one would try to find Laura in order to get to Clint. They would be safe, and he would be gone.

Holes formed in his socks and eventually they fell apart. He found a Salvation Army and bought more. The woman there asked him if he needed help, and it occurred to Clint that he probably looked homeless. And that it was true. He smiled at the woman and said he was fine. She looked relieved and smiled back, and Clint was pleased that he had always been such a good liar.

A truck driver gave him a ride. Clint wasn't worried about getting robbed; he did not have anything worth taking. He told the driver he had just gotten out of prison and was on his way home. It had been sort of a lie and sort of the truth. The man bought him a cup of coffee and wished him luck.

He had a box of power bars in his bag and forced himself to eat two a day. One day he gave one of the bars to a stray dog instead. The dog thumped its tail and Clint patted it for awhile, stroking the dirty fur.

 _Don't do that,_ Natasha's voice whispered in his ear. He always fed stray dogs on their missions and she always scolded. _It'll just follow you around. Clint, don't be an idiot._

"Just add that to the list," he said aloud, and the dog pressed its head against him. "Add that to the list of all the ways that I'm an idiot."

He gave the dog the second power bar and then shooed it away. He hadn't been hungry anyway.

Later he slept behind a McDonald's and coughed all night long.

*********

 

As he got closer to the city Clint stopped more often and shaved and showered at truck stops. He bought packages of cheap underwear and T-shirts, throwing the old ones out as needed. It was easier than finding a place to wash them. He wanted to be clean when he was arrested, wanted that last scrap of dignity.

The cough was worse and he knew that he was sick. He went to the health department of some small town and the nurse told him it was pneumonia, that he needed medicine. Clint thanked her and thought of his dwindling cash. He bought a bottle of cough syrup and kept moving.

He wished he could call Natasha, wanted to hear her voice. But he didn't have a phone and there wasn't much to say to her anyway. She would be angry if she could see him now.

When Clint slept his dreams were fevered and bad. Sometimes there were dreams of happy times, and those were worse, they hurt more. Then dreams started coming when he was awake, timelines getting tangled up in his head. He wondered if he was dying and decided it didn't matter.

He was in his room at Shield headquarters, Doug sitting next to him on the bed, telling him that Campion had died. A heart attack--stress from the job catching the man when countless bullets had missed.

"Don't worry," Doug said. "You still have me. I'll watch out for you, Clint."

It was the same thing that Barney had said years before, in the orphanage. Clint heard the same words and sprinted to the bathroom, threw up again and again. Doug followed him in, rubbed his back. Clint thought Doug might laugh at the tears on his cheeks, as Barney would have done, but Doug was a man of almost fifty, not a thirteen year old boy that had been scared himself. He hugged Clint instead--he had always been the better brother. Clint hugged him back, mindful of the blood that poured from Doug's neck.

"We'll take care each other, Clint," Natasha said. He wanted to stroke her hair, but did not, knew she wouldn't like it.

Clint sat beside Phil on the quinjet. After he met Phil Clint had not dreamed of Dad anymore, of Dad's voice, his swinging fists. Phil looked like a normal guy, but he was smart, steady, strong. He would have stopped Dad, would have taken Clint and Barney away.

Phil was dead, and didn't sit beside him anymore.

He was in the Tower. Tony laughed and Loki leered. Somewhere a Hulk roared. Natasha looked at him, but her face was cold and unreachable. "Where's Laura?" she asked him, again and again.

"I love you, Clint," Mom said. Her voice sounded strange because of her broken teeth.

Clint was in New York, next to Stark Tower, looking at the night sky. There was too much light; he couldn't see any stars.

He saw Tony, and they talked. And everything got confusing then, because Clint suspected that this was actually happening, and nothing was going like Clint had thought it would.

Tony's voice had been kind instead of angry. Tony's hands had helped instead of hurt.

*******

 

Natasha was there one day when we woke up, Tony hovering behind.

"Oh my God," she said, then to Tony "This is 'doing better'??" She touched Clint's face. "Ptitchka, what has happened to you? Clint, where have you been?"

He couldn't answer, but held out his arms and she was in them immediately.

Tony watched them for a moment, then quietly left the room.

********

 

Clint had expected that when Natasha arrived they would leave together, but again he was wrong. Once she saw his haunted eyes and his emaciated frame the plan had changed immediately.

"We're staying here," she told him. "At least until you're better. God, Clint, didn't you try at all? Why didn't you do the least little thing to take care of yourself?"

He shrugged. She knew the answer anyway. "Did you?" he asked. "Did _you_ take care of yourself?"

She rolled her eyes at him but there was no bite behind it. She put her hand on his cheek and said "We're still here, Clint. We're still alive."

He looked away. "Are we?"

 


End file.
